Right its less than a month now til I can begin building my new rig...

Alexrose1uk · 20 Feb 2006 at 15:40

Already got the SonataII Case and the 450W smartpower psu to power the machine.

I'm also getting a:
x2 3800+
2GB G Skill GZ
Asrock Dual SATA 939 PCI-E/AGP mobo
OcUK Value Floppy Drive (in black of course)
2x Liteon SHM-165P6S-02C 16x DVD±RW/RAM (Beige/Black/Silver)
1/2x Hitachi Deskstar T7K250 NCQ 160GB SATA-II 8MB Cache

Here's what I really want help with.
What gfx should I get? Until I can afford all of it, I'll use my 9800Pro as interim gfx but, should I get the x850xt for 146 or save a bit more and get the x1800xl for 211, is the price increase worth it?
I also wonder is it worth paying more and getting a 250GB Hitachi drive over 160GB if I can only afford one, are they a fair bit faster in the larger model, I'd heart they were almost as fast as raptors in raid, but is this only true of the bigger drive?

Also, I'm a raid noob, whats the best/fastest stripe size to set, and is raid reliable these days?

Alexrose1uk · 20 Feb 2006 at 16:10

I have to wait til I get paid. I'll make it priority to get the x1800xl asap though. I would already have the system, but my mums being an ******* over money, even though she knows I only work part time and all my weekends.

Will try and get the mobo, cpu and gfx next month, and use
old ram, hd and dvd drives as interim. I should JUST be able to make it on the money I'll get.

Alexrose1uk · 20 Feb 2006 at 19:50

For the money (£50) the motherboard seems about the best out there anyways, besides the agp may stand me in good stead in case of problems in the future.

Mostly gaming, and I'd heard raid was uber fast, I thought perhaps with two hitachis it'd be fairly reliable, but from what you say perhaps not and I'll just stick to two seperate sata/one larger sata drive.

Alexrose1uk · 20 Feb 2006 at 21:10

Not sure about whether I'll overclock or not, hence the ram with the nice tight timings, and I really cant afford to spend more on my pc. I'm already overspending the original budget lol

Alexrose1uk · 21 Feb 2006 at 15:14

to be persuaded it be a good rig without that card? lol... as I'm coming from an amd athlon xp 2800 and 9800Pro, it'd be a huge jump regardless, but as I should be able to save the money, no reason not to get the gfx now, rather than the month after, instead of the ram and drives.

Alexrose1uk · 21 Feb 2006 at 15:18

Also, looking on the net, due to the speeds, why would I want to get an opteron 160? 1.6GHz vs 2Ghz, I know it has more cache, but its gonna be slower, even with the cache, and as the 3800+ is 205 roughly on the net if you look, its a better buy, and more speed guaranteed imo. Btw, what stepping is the 3800+ these days? I heard there were issues with earlier steppings, have these been corrected?

Alexrose1uk · 21 Feb 2006 at 15:53

Yeah, I've heard most of these have clocked to 2.2/4 easily and some of em up to about 2.7/8 on air, sometimes even stock.
I'm planning to keep the Hitachi deskstars unless someone convinces me otherwise, although on light of what was said I might not raid em, and preferably x1800xl.

What ya think?